OkCupid Admits to Lying to Users, Because YOLO

In a brazen blog post, founder Christian Rudder held nothing back. "Guess what, everybody: if you use the Internet, you're the subject of hundreds of experiments at any given time, on every site," he wrote. "That's how websites work."

OkCupid conducted not one but three different experiments. In two instances, the dating app removed photos and text from profiles to see how people responded to matches with certain information missing. The experiment that's causing more controversy, however, is the one in which OkCupid told pairs of bad matches (with a 30 percent match) that, instead, "they were exceptionally good for each other" and had 90 percent match — just to see how much users are really influenced by the statistics they are given.

Salon technology reporter Andrew Leonard weighed in, writing, "There's a big different between straightforward A/B testing — presenting two different versions of a site to different groups of users in order to see what works better — and consciously presenting false information or otherwise skewing emotionally laden data. One is completely acceptable tinkering designed to improve usability, while the other is irresponsible behavior that treats human beings like lab rats and their emotions as play toys."

You can read more about all the experiments here. What do you think? Harmless or horrible?

What’s Your Reaction?Thanks for your reactionDon’t forget to share this with your friends!000000

0Reactions

34 weeks

Heh, are we sure that "because YOLO" is really an accurate summary? I know it's a catchy headline, but try harder! :) Also, I actually think this post contains some real gems for OkCupid users. They're just buried by the controversial stuff: http://theheartographer.com/th...

35 weeks

It's hard enough to find someone on OkCupid without them messing with us. Especially when you're gay and your dating pool is so small.